The Scientific Core oversees CEDAR's investigative work and is responsible for the Center's strategic program development. This Core unifies the Center's research activities, enabling the Center's vertical integration, and formulates a long-term center-wide common scientific mission. Implementation of research protocols is managed via close collaboration with the Research Modules and Clinical Core. In conjunction with the Administrative Core, research activities are maintained on an ongoing basis with respect to timelines, budget, and personnel management. All the Center's research modules and cores provide information and support for achieving center-wide goals, facilitated by the common database managed by the Computing and Information Systems Core. The analyses of the center-wide specific aims are coordinated in conjunction with the Methodology and Statistics Core. The Scientific Core, through bi-weekly meetings, monitors scientific progress toward achieving the center-wide specific aims, which are: (1) Derive a continuous index of SUD liability in late childhood and adolescence; (2) Test the theory that magnitude of behavioral and affective dysregulation in childhood resulting from the interaction between biological maturation and environmental stress, predicts substance involvement and SUD outcomes; and (3) Explore the possibility of deriving variants of SUD.